AUSTERITY THE PUBLIC VERSUS - WHY PUBLIC SECTOR WAGE BILL CONSTRAINTS MUST END - ActionAid International
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THE PUBLIC VERSUS AUSTERITY WHY PUBLIC SECTOR WAGE BILL CONSTRAINTS MUST END
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This report has been compiled and written by David Archer and Roos Saalbrink based on national research in ten countries
coordinated and supported by Jo Walker, a desk based review by Emma Seery of 69 IMF documents from 15 countries, a
literature review by Mariska Meurs, data crunching by Howard Reed, and documentation from frontline workers collated by
PSI and EI.
Many thanks are due to ActionAid colleagues and their partners in different countries, including: Hoang Phuong Thao, Chu
Thi Ha, Ho Thu Phuong, Nguyen Phuong Anh, Nguyen Thi Thuy Van, Chu Thi Ha, Nguyen Thi Hoa, Dr Thangh, Emmanuel
Ponte, Ana Paula Brandao, Renata Saavedra, Andressa Pellanda, Marina Deavelar, Vanessa Pipinis, Celestine Odo, Suwaiba
Yakubu-Jubrin, Kenneth Okoineme, Adedeji Ademefun, Margaret Brew-Ward, John Nkaw, Prince Osei-Agyekum, Sumaila
Rahman, Eric Osei-Assibey, Angelus Runji, Jovina Nawenzake, Karoli B. Kadeghe, Balozi Morwa, Zakaria Sambakhe, Nathaly
Soumahoro, Yandura Chipeta, Chikumbutso Ngosi, Assan Golowa, Clement Ndiwo Banda, Andrew Chikowore, Kundai H.
Chikoko, Rumbidzayi Makoni, Aminata K. Lamin, Mohamed Fofana, Foday Swaray, Devendra Pratap Singh, Saroj Pokhrel,
Sujeeta Mathema, Ana Alcalde, Anders Dahlbeck, Asmara Figue, Julie Juma, Maria Ron Balsera, Kate Carroll, Sara Almer,
Tetet, Neelanjana Mukhia, Wangari Kinoti, Niranjali Amerasinghe, Arianna Kandell, Lila Caballero, Fatimah Kelleher and Megha
Kashypap.
Thanks are also due to our external reviewers who gave valuable feedback: Caroline Othim, Chris Hope, Danny Bertossa,
Emma Burgisser, Isabel Ortiz, Jennifer Ulrick, Jessica Woodruff, Jon Sward, Kate Donald, Katie Malouf, Leo Baunach, Maria
Jose Romero, Matti Kohonen, Nabil Abdo, Nela Porobic Isakovic, Oceane Blavot, Rick Rowden, Sarah Hewitt, Sonia Languille,
Steve Klees and Thomas Stubbs.
Many thanks also to our colleagues:
In Education International – Jennifer Ulrick, David Edwards, Haldis Holst, Antonia Wulff, Dennis Sinyolo, Louise Hoj Larsen,
Cristina Banita and others.
In Public Services International – Danny Bertossa, Marcelo Netto, Leo Hyde, Gianluigi Lopes, Sani Baba, Kate Lappin and others.
DESIGN BY: www.nickpurserdesign.com
COVER PHOTO: Given they are so under-staffed and over-worked it’s incredible that frontline nurses like Mary in the Upper West State of northern
Ghana can keep smiling.
PHOTO: ACTIONAID
THE PUBLIC VERSUS AUSTERITY: Why public sector wage bill constraints must end 2
CONTENTS
List of boxes 4
Acronyms 4
KEY FINDINGS AND MESSAGES 5
1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
1.1 The cult of austerity 7
– Testimonies from the frontline in Nigeria 8
1.2 Shifting rhetoric versus unchanging practice 8
1.3 Justifications and alternatives 11
– Testimony from the frontline in Nepal 13
1.4 The good, the bad and the future of public sector workers 15
– Testimony from the frontline in Ghana 16
2. OUR METHODOLOGY
– Testimony from the frontline in Ghana 18
3. FISCAL SPACE AND THE MYTH OF THE ‘TEMPORARY’
3.1 Are these measures temporary? 19
– Testimony from the frontline in Zambia 20
3.2 What Percentage of GDP should be spent on the public sector wage bill? 22
– Testimony from the frontline in Nepal 22
3.3 Has action been taken to increase fiscal space, for example by expanding tax revenues? 23
3.4 Have countries with expanding revenues been allowed to spend on the wage bill? 25
4. DODGY DATA AND INIQUITOUS COMPARISONS
4.1 Country comparisons 27
4.2 The public sector wage premium 28
4.3 Missing data: How many health and education workers are needed? 30
5. INTENDED AND UNINTENDED IMPACTS
5.1 Creating fiscal space for ‘development’? 33
5.2 Advancing Infrastructure Fundamentalism 35
5.3 Opening doors to the private sector and charging fees for public services 37
5.4 Busting the unions 39
5.5 Cutting with the bluntest of tools 40
5.6 Undermining health, education, gender and other development goals 42
5.7 Undermining climate action 44
– Testimony from the frontline in Nepal 45
6. A SHRINKING CULT AND IDEOLOGY 46
7. LOOKING FORWARD 49
8. RECOMMENDATIONS 52
References 54
THE PUBLIC VERSUS AUSTERITY: Why public sector wage bill constraints must end 3
LIST OF BOXES Box 1: There are alternatives: Eight financing options to increase public sector wage bills 10 Box 2: Grappling with the debt crisis 11 Box 3: The G7 tax deal 11 Box 4: Progressive tax reforms 12 Box 5: ActionAid’s commitment to a feminist, just and green future 14 Box 6: Brazil and the cult of austerity 17 Box 7: Six years of cuts and freezes in Sierra Leone 20 Box 8: Poverty wages in the public sector in Zimbabwe 26 Box 9: Nepal - Gendered impacts of wage constraints in education 27 Box 10: Who and what is included? 28 Box 11: Reversing the private premium: plans to improve public sector wages in Vietnam 29 Box 12: Benchmarks and who should set them 31 Box 13: Nigeria: Frontline public sector workers on the minimum wage 32 Box 14: Ghana: Health and education in the firing line 35 Box 15: Signs of change in Senegal? 37 Box 16: Most IMF programmes fail 40 Box 17: The feminist macro-economic alliance of Malawi: another economy is possible 48 Box 18: Feminist economic alternatives 50 ACRONYMS CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women ECF Extended Credit Facility IFC International Finance Corporation ILO International Labour Organisation IMF International Monetary Fund OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development PPP Public-private partnership PSI Public Services International SDG Sustainable Development Goal VAT Value-Added Tax WHO World Health Organisation THE PUBLIC VERSUS AUSTERITY: Why public sector wage bill constraints must end
Sarah Chepkewmboi is a frontline nurse working in a new health centre in Mokoyon Parish in Uganda where she grew up. When she was sick as a child her
father would have to cycle with her for two hours to get to the nearest health centre. Extending health services to remote communities can transform lives.
PHOTO: ACTIONAID
KEY FINDINGS AND MESSAGES
T
he world faces a series of interconnecting crises and responding to
them will demand a complete disruption of business as usual. In the
light of Covid-19, the growing debt crisis, rising inequality, gender
injustice and the climate crisis there is an urgent need to revisit the
fundamental redistributive role of States and reimagine the public sector.
Over the past forty years, austerity policies have led to cuts in the public sector
workforce that have undermined the ability of governments to deliver quality public
services. One of the austerity policies that most acutely impacts public services is
the imposition of public sector wage bill constraints harming the delivery of gender-
responsive public services. There are two direct consequences:
1. Blocks to the recruitment of new teachers, nurses and other essential workers,
2. Strict limits to the already low pay of existing health, education and other workers.
Neoliberalism has been oversold for forty years and has stifled the very growth and development it
was supposed to value.1 It is time for a fundamental overhaul of the economic architecture and fiscal
policy, for a just feminist economic system that centres on care for both people and the planet.
Building on work over the past 15 years, in the past year, we have undertaken intensive research across
three continents, reviewed 69 IMF documents from 15 countries, held discussions with IMF economists
and undertaken a literature review on public sector wage bills. Our research has revealed that:
• Despite IMF claims that wage bill containment is only ever temporary, all of the 15 countries
studied were given a steer to cut and/or freeze the public sector wage bill for three or more
years, and eight of them for up to six years.
• In just those 15 countries, the recommended IMF cuts add up to nearly US$ 10 billion – the
equivalent of cutting over 3 million frontline public sector workers.
• In just those 15 countries, a one-point rise in the percentage of GDP spent on the public sector
wage bill would allow for the recruitment of 8 million nurses, teachers and other workers.
• There is no clear logic, rationale or evidence to justify when cuts are needed, or how much is
enough. Zimbabwe, with a wage bill at 17.1% of GDP, was advised to cut, but so was Liberia which
spends 10.1%, Ghana at 8.7%, Senegal at 6.5%, Brazil at 4.6%, Nepal at 3.7%, Uganda at 3.5% and
even Nigeria, which spends just 1.9% of its GDP on public sector workers.
• The latest IMF medium-term advice is to drive every country below the global average for public
sector wage bill spending as a percentage of GDP, contributing to a long-term downwards spiral.
• Despite claims that public sector wage cuts should be accompanied with action to expand tax
revenues, most countries experienced decreasing, stagnating and/ or inadequate tax-to-GDP
ratios. Even the few countries that expanded tax revenues were advised to cut spending on the
public sector wage bill.
• Public sector wage bill constraints undermine progress on health, education, gender and other SDGs.
• There was no serious or systematic ex-ante or ex-post assessment of key worker shortages in
health and education to inform cuts or freezes, and no attempt to project the impact of wage bill
constraints.
• Cuts to public sector wage bills were often justified as essential to free up funds for capital
expenditure investments, giving the absurd impression that spending on the public sector
workforce is not a valuable part of social spending. In practice, infrastructure fundamentalism
actually diverts spending away from health and education.
• The impact is felt triply and most acutely by women and girls, as they are more likely to be
excluded from accessing basic services, to lose opportunities for decent work in the public sector,
and to bear a disproportionate share of the unpaid care and domestic work that rises when public
services fail.
• IMF documents routinely used dodgy data and inappropriate country comparisons to drive down
public sector wage spending.
• Secrecy in IMF discussions with Ministries of Finance is now a key weapon in the fight to
preserve a failing ideology.
T
hese findings reveal a deeply embedded mind-set that is irrationally anti-public sector.
Implementation of these public sector wage bill cuts is both blunt and directionless. It betrays
a bias against the public sector and connects with wider anti-labour policies and trade union
busting. These measures undermine the fulfilment of human rights and achievement of the
SDGs, and block climate action.
But movements to push back against austerity are getting stronger. A radical reimagining of the
public sector and its workforce is key to the response to the multiple crises of Covid-19, climate and
inequalities. It is time to recognise and act on positive cycles of investment in public services, to build
economies and societies that care for both people and the planet. It is time for the IMF and finance
ministries to disavow austerity and prioritise the public sector.
1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
1.1 THE CULT OF AUSTERITY
‘Austerity’, ‘structural adjustment’, ‘economic discipline’, ‘medium--term fiscal frameworks’, ‘financial restraint’
and ‘fiscal consolidation. In the past fifty years the language may have changed but the meaning has not:
public sector budget cuts. Whether imposed from outside by the IMF, or from inside by Ministries of Finance
who have internalised the same neoliberal ideology,2 the austerity policy that most acutely impacts public
services is the imposition of public sector wage bill constraints. That is, putting an overall limit on how much a
government can spend on employing people.
This policy is wrapped up in diverse justifications, but there are two clear consequences:
• blocks to the recruitment of new teachers, nurses, and other personnel, even where there are severe
shortages; and
• strict limits to the already low pay of most health, education and other public sector workers that
undermines recruitment and retention of the qualified and skilled staff needed to provide quality public
services.
The central rationale for imposing austerity measures is to stabilise or decrease debt levels, to prevent defaults
and to ensure that countries can continue to service their existing debts - and access future loans (See box
19). To achieve this, the IMF consider maintaining inflation in low single digits to be crucial.3 There are many
related measures that are widely recognised as part of a standard austerity package, including pension and
social security reforms, labour flexibilisation reforms, reducing or eliminating subsidies, ‘rationalising’ and/
or targeting social protection or safety nets, strengthening public-private partnerships (PPPs),4 and privatising
public assets or State-owned enterprises.5 But one of the centrepieces which underpins and connects all of
these is the imposition of public sector wage bill cuts and freezes.
The effects are clear. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that there is a global shortage of 5.9
million nurses,6 with almost 90% of those in low- and middle-income countries.7 Filling these shortages requires
addressing low pay across the nursing profession, where 90% are women.8 Meanwhile, UNESCO estimates that
69 million more teachers are needed over the next ten years to achieve the goal of universal access to primary
and secondary education by 2030.9
When core education and health goals
are not met, the impact is felt triply and
When health services
most acutely by women and girls,10 who are fail, women are triply
more likely to be excluded from accessing disadvantaged.
PHOTO: FLICKR
basic services, who lose opportunities for
decent work in the public sector, and who
bear a disproportionate share of the unpaid
care and domestic work that increases
when public services fail.11 In many cases
this is happening in the context of wider
regressions in women’s human rights12 and
rising inequalities, Meanwhile, escalating
profits that could finance public services
are disappearing owing to weak tax systems,
tax loopholes, avoidance and evasion,13
enabling wealth to be concentrated in the
hands of multinational companies and
billionaires.14
THE PUBLIC VERSUS AUSTERITY: Why public sector wage bill constraints must end 7
Our global investigation, and intensive research across fifteen countries, shows that the use of public sector
wage constraints is both blunt and ineffective, often damaging the very sectors that governments and the
IMF claim they want to protect. We also show that, in the light of intersecting crises, there is an urgent need
for a radical rethink, placing frontline public sector workers at the heart of the post-Covid recovery and the
transformative responses needed to reverse the climate crisis. After forty years of shrinking and squeezing,
people are pushing back against the cult of austerity15 and reimagining the role of the public sector for a more
caring, feminist, green and just future.16
TESTIMONIES FROM THE FRONTLINE IN NIGERIA
All names have been changed in these real-life testimonies, collected by Public Services International (PSI):
Abigail is a mother of two, and one of two midwives working in a
comprehensive healthcare centre in Nigeria. She explains what
these cuts mean to the chaotic conditions at the frontline: “By the
WHO standard, a nurse is expected to handle four patients but
here if you go inside you will see the crowd, women on antenatal
today are up to 150, and we are only two nurses on duty”. For
Abigail, the fact that they are paid so little at the end of the month
makes things worse: “We cannot afford the school fees for our kids,
we had to withdraw some of them. So when things get better, as we
are believing and hoping, they will now start again.”
Folake is a nurse, also working in a comprehensive healthcare
centre in Nigeria. She is furious about the devastating effects
of budget cuts on health workers. ‘Honestly it has dealt with us
because there is burnout syndrome, there is tension and pressure
because in the last decade, the same crop of people are working
because there is not employment of new personnel”. She lamented
that young graduates are not being employed to relieve the burden
from those in the system who are getting older and says that their
productivity is reducing every day. One colleague, when asked
to give a message to the IMF, said. “Haba, you IMF are cutting
costs, instead of creating positive impact, it is creating negative
impact. Whatever organizations like IMF give is not leading to any
development”.
PHOTOS: FLICKR
1.2 SHIFTING RHETORIC VERSUS UNCHANGING PRACTICE
Over 15 years ago, ActionAid documented the impact of public sector wage bill caps imposed by the IMF as
an explicit condition of loans in low-income countries, showing how they blocked progress on education17 and
HIV&AIDS.18 After three years of consistent research and advocacy by ActionAid and others,19 the IMF backed
down and removed public sector wage bill caps as a condition of loans worldwide.20 The IMF Executive Board
at the time said that it ‘welcomed the declining incidence of such ceilings in Fund-supported programs,’ and
hoped to dispense with them entirely, in the meantime using them only ‘in exceptional cases’ and allowing for
‘spending of scaled-up aid, particularly in priority sectors such as health and education.’21
This dramatic policy shift, questioning one of the pillars of austerity, occurred at a time when the IMF faced
diminishing influence and legitimacy - just before the financial crisis of 2007-2008 which re-emboldened
THE PUBLIC VERSUS AUSTERITY: Why public sector wage bill constraints must end 8
the institution, renewing its relevance, finances and power.22 Since then, the IMF has rebuilt its confidence
and forgotten its promise to stop imposing wage bill constraints, which are now routinely a central part of its
coercive policy advice.23 Our April 2020 research showed that, over the previous three years, the IMF had
recommended to governments in 78% of the countries (where data was available) to either cut or freeze public
sector wage bills.24 This rose to 90% in October 2020, looking at the initial impact of Covid-19.25
Emergency loans issued during the Covid-19 pandemic have further strengthened the power of the IMF.
Despite some shifts in rhetoric from its headquarters, the austerity-based policy reforms that countries agree
with the IMF, either as conditions or coercive advice, are unchanged.26 The recent Global Austerity Alert
suggests that 154 countries face austerity in 2021, rising to 159 countries in 2022.27 Public sector wage bill
cuts are flagged as one of the most prevalent austerity measures with negative social outcomes. Meanwhile
Oxfam’s August 2021 report Adding Fuel to Fire showed that 85% of IMF Covid-related loans agreed between
March 2020 and March 2021 are tied to expectations of a rapid return to austerity, including ‘wage bill cuts
and freezes (31 countries), increases to or the introduction of value-added tax (VAT) (14 countries), and general
public expenditure cuts (55 countries).’28
The degree of austerity found in IMF Covid-era loans flies in the face of the key findings of the IMF’s own
internal research unit. In 2016, they found that the benefits of austerity had been “oversold” and that
austerity is actually counterproductive, prolonging economic recessions and undermining future productivity
and GDP growth.29 It should be incumbent upon the IMF Executive Board and Chief Economist to explain why
new loan conditions have gone directly against the findings of its own internal research unit (and many other
economic studies). If it does not believe its own research to be flawed, then it should explain why it is still
imposing austerity today.
Unfortunately, Covid-19 has exacerbated the debt crisis that many countries already faced, making them even
more dependent on IMF support.30 This reinforces neo-colonial power dynamics:31 as the views of the IMF
can significantly impact the economic prospects of a country, even ‘advice’ from the IMF carries coercive
weight.32 However, some Ministers of Finance in low- and middle-income countries need little persuading:
they have already bought into the cult of austerity and fundamentally believe that there is no alternative.
Other ministers struggle to get support for alternatives or have come to accept the constraints of the present
international order. Too many share a view that the State should be ‘deployed to serve markets through
institutions, norms and laws that protect and facilitate private sector needs at the expense of the public
sector’.33 There are serious concerns about ’revolving doors’ between national ministries and the international
financial institutions.34 This produces a convergence of mindsets that could be particularly toxic post-Covid,
leading to more stringent and extreme austerity than we have seen for a generation, further undermining a
just recovery and the financing available for public services.
In accepting a rapid return to austerity,35 with severely restricted public budgets and public sector wage
constraints, low- and middle-income countries are doing the opposite to some high-income countries in
response to Covid-19: decreasing public spending and State support.36 Indeed, in being pushed back to
austerity, low- and middle-income countries are doing the opposite of what parts of the IMF’s leadership
now recommend. In April 2021, the IMF’s Managing Director urged governments to ‘spend as much as you
can’37 and its Fiscal Monitor observed: ‘Governments also need to adopt comprehensive policies, embedded
in medium-term frameworks, to tackle inequalities—especially in access to basic public services—that were
exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic’. They went on to argue for: ‘Investing in education, healthcare, and
early childhood development and strengthening social safety nets financed through improved tax capacity and
higher progressivity.’
The first year of the pandemic did indeed lead to some increase in spending in the global South in 2020,
but this was very short-term and most went to large corporates (63%) or small and medium enterprises
(13%). Under a quarter was spent on social protection (23%) and almost nothing on public services or public
sector wages.38 Nevertheless, some people have seen these pronouncements as a clarion call from the IMF
for progressive tax and expansionary spending, arguing that we are seeing the death of austerity and the end
THE PUBLIC VERSUS AUSTERITY: Why public sector wage bill constraints must end 9
of the Washington Consensus.39 Others remain sceptical,40 and over 500 organisations rallied in 2020 to
condemn what they saw as the imminent and hasty return to austerity.41 So how do we make sense of this?
Tragically there is a growing gulf – indeed a chasm – between what the IMF says in Washington (often aimed at
advanced economies)42 and what it does in practice at country level (especially in the global South). This gulf
is matched by the capacity of some rich countries to pursue one policy for themselves (increased domestic
spending made possible by low interest loans), whilst using their disproportionate power in the IMF (based on
a neo-colonial geopolitical settlement after the second world war)43 to support the opposite for lower income
countries - who are advised that they ‘lack fiscal space.’ These profound disconnects could have devastating
consequences over the next three years, locking in a decade of decline,44 blocking progress towards fulfilling
human rights obligations and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), preventing action to address climate
change and perpetuating the regression of women’s rights.
Ministers of Finance in the global South face serious challenges, particularly with growing debt burdens, but
there are always alternatives (see Box 1). Opportunities to advance alternatives are increased when countries
stand together, as they surely must do at this pivotal moment, to demand wider changes to the international
economic order.
The international financial institutions have failed to respond adequately to the present crisis. Debt suspension
has been too limited in scope and timeframe (see Box 2), corporate tax reforms have only benefitted the
richest countries (see Box 3), and other interventions like the issuing of Special Drawing Rights will do little to
help unless there is a bold commitment to reallocation and redistribution.45 There is an urgent need for the
cancellation of unrealistic debts, the creation of a sovereign debt workout mechanism and global tax reforms
that would actually benefit the global South, as the leaked Pandora Papers have reconfirmed. This will only
happen when there is sufficient public pressure in every country, and when Ministries of Finance reappraise
their priorities and work together to find solutions.
BOX 1: THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES: EIGHT FINANCING OPTIONS TO INCREASE PUBLIC
SECTOR WAGE BILLS
Recent work by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), UNICEF and UN Women shows that
austerity cuts to the public sector wage bill are not necessary.46 All governments, even in the poorest
countries, have various financing options. These options, supported by policy statements of the United
Nations and international financial institutions, include:
1. Increasing tax revenues (e.g. progressive personal income and corporate income taxes, including of
the financial sector that remains untaxed in many countries);
2. Eliminating illicit financial flows (e.g. money laundering, tax evasion, trade mispricing);
3. Borrowing or restructuring existing debt (there are more than 60 successful cases in recent years);
4. Reallocating public expenditures (e.g. military/defence expenditures);
5. Expanding social security coverage and providing workers in the informal sector with good
contracts;
6. Lobbying for aid and transfers for lower-income countries;
7. Using fiscal and foreign exchange reserves excessively accumulated in Central Banks; and
8. Adopting a more accommodative macroeconomic framework.
An adequate policy mix would allow for increased wage bills and public investments to boost
employment, improve living standards and reduce inequalities. Expenditure decisions are too
important to be taken behind closed doors in Ministries of Finance: Public national social dialogue with
government, trade unions, representative civil society organizations and other relevant stakeholders is
the most effective way to develop optimal solutions to increasing public sector wage bills.
THE PUBLIC VERSUS AUSTERITY: Why public sector wage bill constraints must end 10BOX 2: GRAPPLING WITH THE DEBT CRISIS
The prioritisation of creditor rights over the health and wellbeing of people severely restricts the fiscal
space and policy responses of highly indebted, emerging market and developing economies. This
forces them to continue repaying foreign currency-denominated debts amidst sharply diminished
inflows of foreign exchange. This is keeping money away from emergency economic and health
responses, including access to vaccines.
The G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative was set up in response to the increasing debt vulnerabilities,
and ends in December 2021. It has provided some very short breathing space for a limited set of
countries, but falls far short of the effort needed to meet the current scale of need in the global
South. The Common Framework for debt treatment has not been effective in ensuring private sector
participation, ignores the need for multilateral debt relief and leaves out most middle-income countries
in debt distress. So far, the only result of the Common Framework has been the sovereign rating
downgrades from Credit Rating Agencies to those countries daring to ask for debt restructuring with
private sector participation.
The international community must recognise that the health and wellbeing of millions of people in
developing countries is a precondition for debt sustainability. A systemic approach to the resolution
of the present debt crisis is urgently needed and should include steps towards a permanent
multilateral sovereign debt resolution framework under United Nations auspices. Unfortunately, neither
the Initiative, nor the Common Framework, come close to offering the fair, timely, comprehensive,
transparent and lasting debt resolution that countries in the global South need.47
BOX 3: THE G7 TAX DEAL
There is a clear appetite for action on corporate tax, with the G7 agreeing in June 2021 to set a global
corporate minimum tax rate of 15%.48 But the design of this is flawed,49 as it will increase tax revenues
raised in G7 countries but do nothing for developing countries. Action is needed on country-by-
country reporting and agreeing a formula for apportioning global profits equitably, and the rate is set
too low (25% was widely demanded). Ensuring that developing countries get a fair share of profits from
big corporations is essential as a means for them to expand spending on public services - and this may
require unilateral action until a fairer global deal is in place.50 However, the G7 deals is a sign that the
tide of history is turning finally against tax havens and that bold tax reforms that challenge corporate
power are on the global agenda again. There will be even more pressure now the Pandora Papers have
shone a spotlight on many global businesses and politicians.
1.3 JUSTIFICATIONS AND ALTERNATIVES
Whilst neo-colonial power dynamics between countries are clearly an underlying force, austerity is most often
justified using a narrative that low- and middle-income countries have ‘limited fiscal space’.
You cannot spend what you do not have and cannot borrow.
You have to balance the books.
You cannot keep running a deficit.
There is no magic money tree.
THE PUBLIC VERSUS AUSTERITY: Why public sector wage bill constraints must end 11These simple statements are partially contradicted by the fact that the United States has the largest deficit in
the world,51 vast sums were found to bail out banks in the financial crisis52 and unimaginable funds have been
mobilised for comprehensive social and economic responses to Covid-19 in rich countries, many of whom
were previously imposing austerity.53 Perhaps most fundamentally, these statements are contested by the fact
that there are always choices:
• Choices around what you cut. Soldiers or nurses? The high salaries of ministers in the capital, or the low
salaries of local teachers? Harmful tax incentives to corporates or social protection programmes? Fossil
fuel subsidies or free school meals?
• Choices between cutting spending or raising new revenues, and over how revenue is raised - through
progressive tax reforms that would pass the burden onto the rich or regressive taxes that exacerbate
inequality.54
The IMF estimates that most low- and middle-income countries could raise their tax-to-GDP ratios55 by
five percentage points in the coming decade.56 Achieving such a growth in tax revenues would allow most
countries to double their spending on health and education, and in some cases also double their spending on
water and sanitation and social protection.57 This can and should be achieved through progressive tax reforms,
that place the burden on those who are most able to pay (see Box 4).58
There is a fundamental choice faced by Ministries of Finance: impose austerity or increase fiscal space through
progressive tax reforms and other measures (see Box 1) – or do a bit of both The majority of the public would
almost certainly want to choose differently from the neoliberal orthodoxy – as evident from popular support
for increasing nurse’s pay,59 which is routinely refused by most governments. National action on tax reforms
needs to be complemented by global action, for example to recoup the estimated US$427 billion lost every
year through international tax evasion, which costs countries the equivalent of the annual salaries of nearly 34
million nurses.60
The dominant economic measure - GDP growth – also contributes to the downplaying of the crucial role of
long-term public sector investments in advancing development. Since the 1940s, when GDP growth was first
proposed, the measure has been critiqued for making the unpaid care and domestic work of women invisible,61
and more recently for ignoring planetary and natural resource constraints. But this inadequate indicator still
drives much economic policy.
BOX 4: PROGRESSIVE TAX REFORMS
Taxes are considered progressive if the highest burden is on the rich, and regressive if the poor pay
more as a share of their income or the wealthy manage to evade the taxes they are due to pay, as
highlighted in the leaked Pandora Papers. Some taxes are more likely to be regressive (indirect taxes
such as consumption taxes like VAT) and some are more likely to be progressive (direct taxes such as
inheritance tax, personal income tax, capital gains tax and corporate income tax), but it is possible to
make any tax more progressive through careful design. ActionAid has produced a series of 12 briefings
on how to make different taxes more progressive and gender responsive. These cover VAT, taxes on
excise, informal sector, property, trade, wealth, capital gains, personal income and corporate income,
digital and carbon.62
There is also an increasing body of work on gender-responsive taxes and the importance of using a
feminist framework in designing tax systems.63 The capacity for low- and middle-income countries to
enact progressive or gender-responsive tax reforms is, however, partially constrained when global tax
rules are set by the club of rich nations at the OECD, so there is growing pressure for a representative
and empowered United Nations tax body.64
THE PUBLIC VERSUS AUSTERITY: Why public sector wage bill constraints must end 12Timeframes seem to be a critical factor in determining whether to choose austerity or to increase progressive
taxes and publicly funded investments. Most Ministries of Finance are caught up in short-term thinking, in part
owing to the influence of the IMF and its attachment to medium-term expenditure frameworks,65 which look
predominantly at a three- to five-year period(which is actually an improvement of previous timeframes that
were even shorter). This is matched by short-term political cycles, with politicians wanting quick wins that can
help their re-election, rather than investments that will take years to manifest results.
In this timeframe, most recurrent public spending is seen as a problem, something to be constrained, as it
yields relatively few immediate returns on investment. This is most evident in the case of education, where
spending on teachers seems like a vast cost (up to 30% of the total public sector workforce)66 which, by
standard measures, yields almost no development benefit or economic return over a five year period.67 In
contrast, if you look over a ten to fifteen year period (when children have completed school), spending on
education is one of the soundest investments a country can make for positive development outcomes and
economic growth.68 The present dominant economic thinking does not allow governments, and especially
Ministers of Finance, to factor in these long-term benefits, or indeed the inherent value and legal obligation of
fulfilling human rights commitments. So, in the narrowest of economic terms, education spending appears to
be like pouring money down a drain.
Spending on other frontline public sector workers suffers a similar problem. It takes time to train and recruit
any professional working in public service, and the benefits do not provide an instant return that can be easily
calculated. Looking at just recurrent costs, without factoring in the benefits, makes expanding investment in
the public sector workforce difficult to justify for Ministers of Finance, and for politicians who want immediate
delivery and quick wins. This short-termism encourages a focus on one-off capital investments like major
infrastructure projects, with a simpler and often more visible outcome.
It is notable that whilst the IMF has routinely included Medium-Term Expenditure Frameworks in its work for
decades, it is only now looking at the other side of the equation. Medium-Term Revenue Strategies are still
being piloted, rather than widely used.69 If the aim is to balance the books, then most would assume that you
need to look equally at the income available (and how it is raised) and the spending you need to make. If the
income is seen as a given or fixed amount (rather than being properly scrutinised to identify who pays what
and who benefits70), the scope for increasing expenditure will always be limited. Once again, there are signs that
the IMF is trying to change, but the approach has been piloted in only a handful of countries, and participation
in the process has been limited.
Beyond broad arguments around ‘fiscal space’, the IMF and Ministries of Finance sometimes use other
arguments for imposing freezes or cuts on public sector wage bills. A common argument is the need to ‘cut
bureaucracy’, ‘reduce governance costs’, or ‘advance civil service reform’. All of this plays to the false narrative
that the public sector wage bill is used to pay for ‘pencil pushers’ in offices,71 when the reality in almost every
country is that the it pays mainly for frontline workers actively involved in providing health, education and other
public services.
TESTIMONY FROM THE FRONTLINE IN NEPAL
Tulsi Neupane: I am an English teacher and headmaster of Lalit Bikas Adharvud School. I am a member of
Nepal Teacher Association. Our salaries have remained stagnant for the last four years. After COVID, I met
many public school teachers who did not receive salaries and/or lost their jobs. I think it is a loss to education
system that so many experienced teachers may now never return and in their place, we have to recruit
unexperienced and untrained teachers.
Testimony collected by Education International
THE PUBLIC VERSUS AUSTERITY: Why public sector wage bill constraints must end 13BOX 5: ACTIONAID’S COMMITMENT TO A FEMINIST, JUST AND GREEN FUTURE
ActionAid is committed to placing care at the centre of the economy, society and politics. We
recognize that care and wellbeing are critical to sustaining societies and economies, as well as the
environment, and need to be valued and redistributed. The care economy will revalue women’s paid
and unpaid work, will organize a fair redistribution of work across countries, genders and generations,
and provide decent work and ‘green jobs’ for all in the digital era. Crucially, care includes the work
of caring for the environment and ecosystems, of which women and indigenous people are often
more reliant and, in many contexts, the key guardians - placing them in direct confrontation with the
capitalistic economy, and at the frontline of the climate and humanitarian crises.
The care economy will be an exit from a neo-colonial, fossil fuel dependent, high emission, extractive
economy, riddled with humanitarian crises. It allows profound transformations in our food, energy and
economic systems that radically cut greenhouse gas emissions, promote agroecology, ensure food
sovereignty, energy access and resilient livelihoods. Care at the centre of our economy, politics and
society would also mean the reinstatement of the social contract between international institutions,
States and people, followed by a massive scale-up in investment in public services including health,
education, child and elder care, food, transport, sanitation, gender-based violence services, housing,
and safe and green public spaces.
At an international level, a feminist, just and green transition, with a decolonial lens, will transform
global governance rules, systems and institutions, to rebalance the historical and ongoing unequal
power relations between the global North and global South. A feminist, just and green transition will
also strengthen the State, to protect not only its citizens but all migrants, internally displaced people
and refugees, reviving the notion of public goods and quality public services. There needs to be a
reassertion of the central role of the State as a redistributive actor.72
Maternity clinic in Nigeria, where hundreds of
women wait each day to see a handful of midwives.
PHOTO: PUBLIC SERVICES INTERNATIONAL
THE PUBLIC VERSUS AUSTERITY: Why public sector wage bill constraints must end 14A second major thread of justification is that there is an urgent need to ‘reduce inefficiencies and corruption’ –
for example to eliminate ‘ghost workers’. Transparency International flag three basic types of corruption:73
1. Corrupt public servants demanding or taking money: this needs to be taken seriously – but it is unclear
how cutting overall wage bills will help (and indeed it might make matters worse as flagged by the World
Bank74).
2. Politicians or officials misusing public money by granting public jobs or contracts to their sponsors, friends
or family. This is the origin of most ghost workers, where patronage is used to get people on government
payrolls or enable them to claim the salaries of people who have died or never existed. Though the
problem is the politicians or officials, damage is done to the reputation of the professions – as if teachers
and nurses themselves are responsible for the ghosts in their midst. Squeezing the overall wage bill is not
an effective, targeted measure to address this. After 30 years of effort, the IMF and World Bank seem to be
highly ineffective ghostbusters, as new apparitions are constantly popping up in their reports, though their
reputation seems undiminished.
3. Relatively less attention seems to be paid to corporations bribing officials to get lucrative deals, which
may become more widespread given the IMF and World Bank support for privatisation and PPPs (see
section 5.3).75 Sometimes corporations use their money and access to power to go beyond winning
specific contracts, and influence wider policy to advance their interests, often against wider public interest.
Powerful corporations have an active interest in claiming public money and reducing the power of the
public sector.
Accusations of a country’s inefficient spending on public services are sometimes backed up by World Bank
data showing greater spending than its peers on a sector without achieving the same outcomes. There may
be complex reasons for this, and the evidence base is often contested, but in any scenario it is unclear how
cutting or freezing the overall public sector wage bill will help to address inefficiencies identified – and it may
in fact exacerbate them. For example, if a country has relatively high investment in education and relatively
poor learning outcomes, the answer may be to invest in better teacher training or a wider range of other
interventions. Cutting teacher numbers or teacher pay is unlikely to help. This highlights the need for impact
assessments before wage bill constraints are introduced as part of a policy reform, but this rarely happens.
1.4 THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC SECTOR WORKERS
Sometimes Ministries of Finance or the IMF make promises to protect education and health workers from
the impact of cuts or freezes, with exemptions made to protect specific groups such as primary teachers or
frontline nurses. However, our research reveals that this is not easy. Constraints on the overall wage bill are
hard to deliver when you try to exempt the largest groups on it – which tend to be teachers and nurses.76
If these ‘good’ workers (that constitute between a third and a half of all public sector workers) are to be
protected, then cuts will be deeper in other ‘less essential’ (‘bad’?) sectors.
But who exactly are these ‘non-essential’ public sector workers?77 Apart from the evidently bad ‘ghosts’ who
haunt IMF reports, this is rarely specified by those calling for austerity cuts. Perhaps the garbage workers are
wasteful or firefighters need some dampening down? Are public transport workers taking us all for a ride?
Should support for people with disabilities be incapacitated, and should toddlers in early childcare learn to
look after themselves? At all levels of government, already stretched services supporting disabled people,
vulnerable women, young children, farmers, and many other groups are in the firing line.
In practice there is a lot of interdependency between different public services. Cuts in one place affect
services in another. Health care suffers when people have limited access to clean water. Education suffers
when there is no early childhood care, education and development. Gender-based violence tends to rise when
streets are not lit, when public transport is overcrowded,78 and when low pay increases economic dependence.
THE PUBLIC VERSUS AUSTERITY: Why public sector wage bill constraints must end 15Failures in any one service increase women’s burden of unpaid care and domestic work, undermining their
access to other services and ability to participate in public life. Selective protections are not a sustainable
solution, and it is time for a more holistic reassessment of the value of the public sector workforce.
Covid-19 has revealed, clearer than ever, our dependency on key workers. Many are public sector workers
on low pay, who continued to work even at times of high risk to their health. There was a growing appreciation
in many countries for the ‘public sector ethos’ – the commitment to work in service to others rather than
purely for personal gain. There could not be a better time for a reappraisal of the contribution of public sector
workers – and a radical rethinking of an ideology that has undermined their numbers, their pay and their
conditions for nearly 50 years, whilst allowing the vast accumulation of wealth in few hands.
The climate crisis further accelerates the case for a radical reimagining of the public sector, to help deliver a
just transition which works for both people and planet. Climate resilience is undermined when the majority of
women smallholder farmers cannot access relevant extension services, or when energy utilities are privatised,
potentially diminishing the capacity of governments to act on emission reduction targets. To build resilient
States able to adapt radically to the changing climate will require strong government intervention and public
action. And resilient people who are able to adapt to changes will require access to gender-responsive public
services and universal social protection. Education systems need to be transformed if every generation is
to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes to live sustainably. States will need to take bold action to
shift away from a failing development paradigm based on fossil fuel extraction, and towards a low- or zero-
carbon, sustainable economy. This will require strategic investments and effective regulatory frameworks that
‘minimalist States’ with a weak public sector lack the means to deliver.
Are Ministries of Finance and IMF officials ready for the fundamental reappraisal of fiscal policies and the
public sector workforce that is now needed? Or will the public have to demand such a transformation? There
is a deeply embedded mindset in international financial institutions and most national finance ministries that
needs to be changed, a dogma to be dismantled,79 an unconscious bias that sees the public as inherently
ineffective and the private effective. This is a mindset that routinely sees public sector workers as a cost to
be contained rather than an investment to be supported. This bias portrays investment in the workforce as
wasteful, whilst investment in infrastructure is the route to development (this report could easily have been
called ‘people versus things’).
The stakes have never been higher, because a new era of the most austere austerity will fall on 85% of the
planet’s population in the next year unless we change the mindset of Ministries of Finance.80 This is a struggle
against fiscal fundamentalism and the cult of austerity,81 that urgently needs to escalate in every country and
internationally in order to respond sustainably to the economic crisis triggered by Covid-19, the climate crisis
and the crises of inequality.
TESTIMONY FROM THE FRONTLINE IN GHANA
Unemployed nurse: “…our work is not an easy job, it is a sacrificial
job and it is a risk taking job. So I am appealing to the government
and whoever is involved or has a hand in our career to help us.
Especially in recruitment as early as possible because a lot of people
go through a lot of things before they even get something to eat...
You can’t be trained and be sitting in the house. You can’t exercise or
practice what you learnt in school at home. ..So we are appealing to
whoever is connected with it to really do something about it.”
Testimonies collected by PSI
PHOTOS: FLICKR
THE PUBLIC VERSUS AUSTERITY: Why public sector wage bill constraints must end 16BOX 6: BRAZIL AND THE CULT OF AUSTERITY
Brazil made progress in fighting historical inequality, thanks in part to the social rights that were
built into the 1988 Federal Constitution, which led to a number of social policies: the Bolsa Família
programme dramatically reduced poverty;82 education was made more equitable; and measures to
secure better wages83 and reduce unemployment were introduced.
This progress came to a sudden halt from 2015. Since when the Brazilian Government has been
slashing public spending, eroded public services and deregulated the labour market.84 In December
2016, ‘Constitutional Amendment 95’ came into effect, with the support of the IMF. The amendment
mandates a 20-year zero real growth rule – or ‘expenditure ceiling’ - on federal primary expenditures.
This has already led to a drop in expenditure of 17% in education and 12% in health. Meanwhile the
2017 labour reform law led to a growing precariousness of both private and public sector workers,
a weakening of labour rights, working conditions, and salaries. The reforms have also made room for
increased outsourcing, hiring without public tender, and temporary employment contracts with fewer
rights – opening the door for greater privatisation.
Attacks on financing public sector workers are supported by a narrative that a bloated public workforce
is suffocating the State, acting as a fiscal drain, leading to excessive wage inflation overall (due to high
wages in the public sector), and stifling private sector employment growth. However, the discourse is
based on unsupported fallacies. For instance, only 12.5% of Brazilian workers are in the public sector,
compared with 21% in OECD countries. OECD countries also spend more than double on public sector
workers compared to Brazil.
Moreover, the growth of public service in Brazil between 1986 and 2017 was not due to an unwieldy
or “overpaid” civil service, as often implied, but to the expansion of essential services at municipal
level. About 60% of public employees in Brazil are involved in the delivery of key public services,
such as health and education workers, at municipal level. Finally, the growth in public jobs has
been accompanied by the growth of private jobs - debunking the argument that the public sector is
strangling growth in private sector employment.
The IMF is clearly complicit in the Government’s agenda, and has been strongly advocating for
austerity measures and wage constraints in Brazil (not least through its support to the expenditure
ceiling). IMF advice has called for wage and hiring freezes, and caps on salaries in the public sector,
as part of their overall advice to cut and freeze the public wage bills in recent years.85 In 2020, they
recommended ‘removing minimum requirements for State-level spending on education and health’
as a priority action.86 In a 2018 paper aimed at “Rightsizing Brazil’s Public Sector Wage Bill” the IMF
called for widespread reforms to achieve a long-term decrease in salaries and lower levels of public
employment.87
It’s Not A Crisis, It’s A Project: The Effects Of State Reforms In Brazilian Education Between 2016 And
2021 Brazilian Campaign for the Right to Education www.campanha.org.br
THE PUBLIC VERSUS AUSTERITY: Why public sector wage bill constraints must end 172. OUR METHODOLOGY
ActionAid and peers first challenged the IMF on its use of public sector wage bill caps over three years (2005-
2007), achieving what we felt at the time was an unprecedented victory - the IMF backed down.88 Our 2019 and
2020 research on financing public services showed that, whilst loan conditions setting wage bill caps had been
removed, the IMF continued to issue coercive policy advice, so practices on wage bills at country level were
as bad as ever.89 Once again, public sector wage bill constraints were being used as a flagship of austerity. So,
over the past year we have researched in much more detail what governments, Ministries of Finance and the
IMF have been doing on public sector wage bills:
• Supporting intensive national research and advocacy work on trends in public sector wage bills in ten countries:
Ghana, Malawi, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Nepal, Vietnam and Brazil – including primary
and secondary research, analysis with experts and allies and dialogue with government ministries.
• Reviewing 69 IMF Article IV90 and loan documents91 across 15 countries over the past five years, looking at
all references to and connections with public sector wage bills (the ten countries above plus Liberia, South
Africa, Kenya, Mozambique, and Bangladesh). A fuller methodology note on this can be found HERE.
• Discussing key issues around public sector wage bills with senior IMF economists to better understand how
they justify and use constraints to public sector wage bills.92
• Analysing the wider literature on public sector wage bills and the percentage of GDP spent on wage bills in
different contexts.
• Studying relevant IMF policy and research documents, Board documents, and speeches, including on
related issues such as the Comprehensive Surveillance Review and what the IMF call ‘macro-structural
issues’ – namely gender, inequality and climate change.
• Supporting Public Services International (Nigeria, Ghana and Nepal) and Education International (Nepal,
Senegal, Zambia and Malawi) to collate documentation from frontline public sector workers on the
implications of wage constraints on overworked and understaffed public sector workers.
• Engaging in a continued dialogue and learning process with other organisations seeking to challenge
austerity and promoting a rights-based reimagining of the public sector.
In the following sections we summarise our findings and analysis from across all this research.
TESTIMONY FROM THE FRONTLINE IN GHANA
Following IMF advice, more than 41,000 nurses, midwives and other professionals could not be posted to
health stations after completing their training between 2017-2018. This led to the formation of the Graduate
Unemployed Nurses and Midwives Association.
Perpetual Ofori-Ampofo (active member): “…we cannot have an education
system where you educate people through tertiary education through
universities and they finish, and they cannot be employed because there
is an IMF directive. Especially when it comes to health, it is not good
enough… let’s look at the bigger picture. If the world has not learnt anything
from this pandemic, we must learn and know that when we all grow and
develop, that’s when we all flourish. Diseases can travel anywhere whether
it is a normal virus, whether it is a Covid -19 virus, Ebola or whatever with
people moving all around the world. Diseases and infection can also travel
anywhere and therefore when we all grow, when we all develop, that’s
where we can have systems that can be protective of the human race.”
PHOTOS: FLICKR
THE PUBLIC VERSUS AUSTERITY: Why public sector wage bill constraints must end 183. FISCAL SPACE AND THE MYTH OF THE ‘TEMPORARY’
3.1 ARE THESE MEASURES TEMPORARY?
In our interviews with the IMF, the main reason given for public sector wage bill containment was the need
for ‘fiscal consolidation’. We were consistently told that these measures were always temporary.93 We
were advised that wage bill constraints would not even be on the table if it were not for the need for fiscal
consolidation, and that these measures were only very ‘short term.’ A wage bill cut, or freeze, would NOT be
considered if it had already been in place for a number of years. Indeed, the short-term nature of public sector
wage bill cuts or freezes is emphasised in the IMF’s most recent policy paper on the subject: ‘Issues when
cutting government pay to help reshuffle spending in a crisis’ (IMF, April 2020) which argues that ‘paving the way
for their reversal’ should always be a key consideration.
Our findings (see Table 1) suggest that public sector wage bill containment is often anything but temporary, with
IMF policy advice to Ministries of Finance often pushing for persistent reductions year after year. Our review of
Article IV and loan documents (2016-21) found that all 15 countries were given a steer to cut and/or freeze
the public sector wage bill for three or more consecutive years, and eight of them for five to six years.94
In other words, we found no evidence of short-term cuts, and nor did we find any evidence of explicit exit
strategies or advice to ‘pave the way’ for reversals to wage bill cuts or freezes.
Table 1. IMF advice on public sector wage bills to selected countries (2016-21) and implications for the number
of public sector workers lost due to cuts
Years Impact of meeting Target Public Losses (in Number of Number of Number of
advised to latest medium- sector wage US$ millions) lost teachers lost nurses other lost
FREEZE or term PSWB target bill as % of on public (20% of (15% of public sector
CUT PSWB (percentage points) GDP (%) sector losses) as losses) as workers (65%
as % of [Financial Year period] workforce per UNESCO per Abuja balance)
GDP spending benchmarks Declaration
Bangladesh 3 0.2% cut [FY16-25] 2.1 605.1 33,821 19,895 115,389
Nigeria 6 0.4 cut [FY15-25] 2.2 1792.5 329,431 137,148 1,315,933
Nepal 3 1.1 cut [FY15-24] 2.9 376 18,066 37,388 34,877
Uganda 4 0.1 cut [FY16-25] 3.6 35.2 746 3,803 0
Kenya 6 1.4 cut [FY14-24] 3.8 1337 51,230 45,101 159,820
Zimbabwe 5 11.1 cut [FY15-23] 4.9 1879.5 49,289 40,649 156,511
Tanzania 3 0.5 cut [FY15-20] 5.3 305.7 12,222 7,283 41,614
Senegal 5 Unclear 6
Sierra Leone 6 1.4 cut [FY15-26] 6 57.7 1,664 1,746 4,912
Ghana 3 1.8 cut [FY16-24] 6.9 1210.2 41,519 34,158 131,919
Malawi 4 Increase 1.2 [FY16-23] 7.5
Zambia 3 1.0 cut [FY16-24] 7.7 279.7 12,060 15,356 32,882
Liberia 6 5.0 cut [FY15-25] 7.8 153.5 5,756 5,727 17,299
Vietnam 6 Unclear 8.9
Brazil 5 0.1 cut (federal FY16-25] 4.0 1877.8 27,552 39,360 70,848
9,909.9 583,356 387,614 2,082,004
Source – data analysis of IMF documents by Emma Seery, fuller table with detail available HERE. Equivalents in US$ and public sector workers by
Howard Reed (fuller table HERE)
THE PUBLIC VERSUS AUSTERITY: Why public sector wage bill constraints must end 19You can also read
